Summer Has Faded, The Flames Are Dying: SFIF Redux
by ThisIsZen
Summary: A return to old themes; rewriting Summer's Fading in Flames. An alternate-universe aftermath of El Manana, taking the video literally: Noodle's island is shot down, and with no help and no idea why, she has to survive on her own as best she can. R
1. Windmill, Windmill

[[Author's Note: Although I intend to place these at the end from now on, I figure due to changing my name it's worth putting this at the start. This is Cypher Stormshard on the new handle I use pretty much universally, so it's nice to meet you again and I'm glad to be back writing Gorillaz fic, seriously.

Regarding the story itself: Summer Has Faded is the "new" Summer's Fading in Flames - I started writing the former when I was fourteen, maybe younger, and in any case I don't like it at all anymore. It lacked focus and direction past the first couple chapters, and more than that, I didn't like that I let it drop without ever finishing it. So, I figured that, as my comeback to and the general region of the internet occupied by Gorillaz fiction, I'd re-do Summer's Fading in Flames, and do it right this time.

That's basically the story behind this fic. Note: The story contained in these chapters is based on a very old status of the Gorillaz canon at this point, and is absolutely Alternate Universe. The events over the course of this fic are constrained by canon only up to the El Manana video, prior to the release of Rise of the Ogre, when it was revealed that Noodle was still alive.

So, without further ado and before I get the chance to prattle on further, I'll simply welcome you to my second attempt at this story, and hope you enjoy it.]]

It was a hazy summer afternoon, and the air was still save for the sound of the wind, the calming creak of the old windmill, and the subdued voice of a blind man, floating on the air. Feet and feet again in the air above an idyllic green landscape somewhere in the midst of England, Windmill Island continued its languid, never-ending journey towards the horizon, gently cutting through the clouds on its way. At its tip, a young, violet-haired woman sat, legs dangling out over the precipice. Neither height nor gravity held sway here - the only things of any significance were the peace of the afternoon, and the music, fruits of a labour long in the making.

_Summer don't know me no more,_  
_Eager man, that's all…_

She had closed her eyes for a moment to listen to the wind and the music weave together, and lazily, she opened them again, looking out on the green beneath her cast in the crimsons of the time. There was a sound, gnawing at the back of her head - a thing that didn't belong in her temporary paradise. Like a buzzing insect, unpleasant but annoying. A mosquito sound. But for the moment, she ignored it, content in the ennui of a passing summer's day.

In the gap of her errant attention, they came.

_Summer don't know me,_  
_He just left me loathe in myself,_  
_Cause I do know lord,_  
_From you that,_  
_Just die, yeah…_

The mosquito sound became a hornet, angry wings beating discord into her afternoon. She frowned. She looked around, and saw black chrome and gun barrels. The music was forgotten, but it still continued to play, impetuous, unconcerned. For a moment, she was stunned.

_I saw that day,_  
_Lost my mind,_  
_Lord I'm fine,_  
_Maybe in time,_  
_You'll want to be mine_

Then everything was cacophony, and a super soldier was reduced to a scared teenage girl running for the only cover she could find.

For every step and every thud of her heart, she could hear behind her two, three loud, earthy tump-ps, as bullets kicked up dirt and anger. One scored the boombox that she had used for her soundtrack, leaving a deep scar in the plastic - but miraculously, the machine itself was uninjured and continued to play. But the roar of rotating machine guns swallowed the sound, and what wasn't masked by that was drowned by the pounding in her ears and the sound of panicked, gasping breath. She reached the brick-and-mortar safety of her windmill, ducking inside, instincts telling her to run. Keep running. Don't stop. She couldn't stop.

It was well that she didn't, as behind and above, fragments of lead tore the plaster to pieces. The brick might as well have been linen - it didn't even give them pause. Every bullet hole was a beam of light, and every beam was a prison bar. She was trapped.

_Don't stop the buck when it comes,_  
_It's the dawn, you'll see…_

The sound faded, the hornet sound was a mosquito again. Smoke tickled her eyes. Unbecoming naivety suggested it might be over. She went out to check.

_Money won't get there,_  
_Ten years past it now,_  
_You'll flee…_

Her island was in shambles. Her windmill was on fire, and the grass was all torn and rapidly charring. The gears and mechanisms within her monument to a carefree existence groaned in protest at being forced to do their duty in spite of the damage. A battered, broken set of blades still turned in a rapidly blackening sky.

Two gunmetal gray dots taunted her vision, even against the distant storm.

If you do that,  
I'll be sold,  
To find you…

She ran again, desperate for cover, more than she ever could have been before. The thunder of the guns kicked up even as she turned, even as she printed for a safety she knew wasn't safe. A bullet tore through her hair, cut strands fluttering against her face for a moment, and then she was climbing stairs, running, trying to escape and knowing she couldn't. More beams, more bars, and it was getting hot and she couldn't see, and then she slipped on a damaged stair. She fell like lead in the ocean, and the impact of her head on the dirt-covered stone floor seemed to signal to the island that the time had come. It could give up.

Disoriented and bleary, her island began to plummet, and she with it. The helicopters circled like flies about a pig's head.

_I saw that day,_  
_Lost my mind,_  
_Lord, I cry…_

As it fell, the tinned roof of the windmill tore lose and fluttered upwards, borne on the wind as the island descended into a canyon below, a piece of desert in an English countryside. The precious cargo on this errant piece of metal spun about, g-forces testing her already hazy state of mind. Hastily fastened to her back was the lone parachute they kept in the windmill, miraculously undamaged. As the helicopters descended, she pulled the string, certain now that they had lost sight of her, focusing on the enticing pray beneath them.

The island struck the canyon floor with a force that reverberated through the air even as far up as she, the bass of the impact carrying with it both sadness and snatches of song. The gunmetal hornets descended to finish their work - a single black speck dropped from one, too far away to make out, falling on the remains of her island.

She would have cried, had the angry hand of god not descended at that moment to punish imagined transgressions. There was a hush in the air for a fragment of a second, and then an unimaginable roar.

There was red and smoke and wind, tossing her about like a rag doll, and such a terrible sound.

There was red and black bleeding into each other as her battered mind gave out. Her last feeling was of weightlessness. Of descent.

_Maybe in time,_  
_You'll want to be mine…_


	2. For The Land

The ground was dry, gritty, and bland. What little breeze managed to dip down into the canyon tousled the dust lightly from its resting place, annoying the dirt more than moving it.

In the sky, blackened by smoke and angry clouds, a low rumble from afar announced the coming of a storm. As if to provide contrast to the events of moments before, the first drops of precipitation fell gently, pattering almost soundlessly on any surface they fell on. The rain built in frequency slowly, but never fell with a fury - the day had spent its rage.

Amidst the wreckage, the ashes and the fire-blackened walls of the bombed out canyon, a form stirred, tangled in the tattered remnants of a parachute. There were soft murmurs of discontent and despair, groans of pain, as the figure fought to free herself from this cloth prison. Finally, the veil lifted, and the girl that emerged was a sad sight.

Hair a tangled and dirt-covered mess, with blood crusting and darkening where she had struck the windmill floor. Her clothes were ragged, dirty and torn, but thankfully mostly intact, but the girl underneath was bruised and sported many gashes. Her right shoulder felt wrong, as if someone had removed it and reattached it poorly, but a few tests proved she could still use the arm and hand. Accompanying those tests were spasms of horrific pain, though, and so she let the arm hang limp as soon as she had pulled herself to her feet. She looked around, and sucked in a harsh breath - she had watched it happen, and yet the reality of it was still a terrible, looming thing.

After the bomb had gone off, she had apparently been tossed almost into the midst of the wreckage... what little that remained. The blast had torn the windmill island into seemingly so many particles, as most of it couldn't be found. But here and there, there were reminders. Pieces of splintered wood, a fencepost jammed between two rocks. A piece of one of the windmill blades had embedded itself in the canyon wall.

She found herself walking to the middle of the charring, without really knowing why. She didn't want to see this - and with the breeze turning to a biting chill and without any idea where she was, she needed to use every moment she had. But... something compelled her to stand in the very spot her island had once been.

Sitting almost at the very center, as if some mocking joke made in poor taste, was a fragment of a Demon Days CD. Without really understanding why, but for some reason angry, she picked up the broken disc and flung it at the wall. It exploded into even smaller shards and lost itself in the rocks and rubble. The girl, meanwhile, slumped onto a rock and took a few haggard, shuddering breaths.

She was angry. She was sad. She was… confused. She was so many things all at once, and still disoriented and it all jumbled up in her head like some sort of smoothie made out of jagged glass shards and gunpowder… but then the faint hint of a breeze brushed her arm again and it was ice, and she had a purpose again, and the fog cleared. She was in the middle of a canyon with no idea where that canyon exactly was, without food or shelter, or even a windbreaker to keep her safe from the rain. She had to stand up - it hurt - and move - it hurt - and find something or somewhere or someone or anything that would help her get out of this situation - it still hurt. Every step sent jagged spikes up cramped, abused muscles in both legs. She simply tightened her lip and forced her way through it.

It didn't matter _what _she was, genetically. She couldn't fight the weather.

With a final glance backwards at the chunk of windmill sticking out of the canyon wall, Noodle left the island behind forever.

The canyon might as well have been mother earth's varicose veins, though, for how convoluted its path seemed. It was a prison without a roof, but it was too rain-slick to just climb out, so she was reduced to searching for some sort of natural pathway out. Each bend and weave in its course seemed to just lead to another, or to many, and a few times she turned into an empty, exit-less dead end and had to turn about and walk around to pick up her path where she thought she'd left it. All this with a head wound, too, and even if she had a purpose to keep her going forward, it got fuzzy at times and her course would be erratic, and sometimes she would trip on a rock or slam her knee into a boulder and not realize she had been dazing…

Panic was beginning to set in - panic at the lack of an exit. Panic at the cold settling into her bones now, on a day that would normally just be called "mild." Panic at the fact that her mind seemed to be fleeing her body from the ears, a cloud of mental fireflies. She tripped again, and pulled herself up again. A distraught tear slid down a battered cheek… but she wiped at it aggressively, bit her lip and frowned, and stumbled on.

It didn't matter. None of it mattered. Nothing at all, the only thing that was important was… was getting… Out of this canyon.

But with every step, the faint rays of sun grew dimmer, and it became harder to see the rocks and rubble deposited in that place over the years. Scrapes and bruises accumulated, even as the clouds cleared and the moon (full, thank all that is holy or not), shone down on that teenage girl's shivering form.

And still, as night descended, she couldn't find her exit and her salvation. There was a creeping despair building in the base of her throat and the pit of her stomach, accompanied by a growing certainty that she was going to die out here, freezing to death in the stupidest way. The indignity of it made her laugh. The sound of her own voice, and the hints of head trauma in its unsteady tone startled her. She was quickly silent again, but the echoes taunted her for a while after.

As she walked, legs like jelly, one thought entered her addled head, repeating over and over again. It would have been a mantra if it consisted of words and not wordless sentiment.

If she died out here, it would be stupid, and not only that, she'd never know why. No one would show up as she breathed her last and kindly explain why her island was shot down in the middle of a peaceful day, why people dropped bombs on what they thought was her. Why she ended up wandering in a canyon until she froze to death or her wounds finally stopped her breathing. No one would kindly explain what she had done to deserve such an obscure end.

It made her angry all over again. Anger gave her focus. Anger, right now, was all that she held on to. Anger was why she needed to survive. Anger forced one foot in front of the other again. Anger held her together.

But even anger couldn't, ultimately, win out over sheer exhaustion. As the rain began to abate, the shivering form pushed herself into a small crevice between two boulders, shielding herself as much as possible from the elements..

Under the moon and the stars, blinking down indifferently, all Noodle had to sleep on was a stone pillow.

[[I should mention, of course, that if the writing at any point seems unpolished, it's because this is literally the "raw" work; I'll be editing it eventually, of course, but I'd rather not wait until I'd polished my turd to show it to everyone. Besides, it's gotta be interesting or something to see the before AND after results of editing, eh?

O'course, if I feel a chapter's crap, I'll polish it a bit. But if I'm happy enough with a raw work to share it, why not?]]


	3. What Passes for Rest interlude

There are bruises, and broken bones, and burns and things, and her shoulder just wasn't right, and so far from home...

So sleep my child, so far to go, and such things to see, what might you be at the end of it all? But all that remains is the dreams in your head, and the ache in your neck from a little stone bed in a faraway canyon and no one knows and even fewer care. And _they_ aren't there.

They're far away and sleeping sound, unaware and out of bounds, the people that pass for your family. They are insane and rattled and just as flawed as you, and yet you can't help but think of them. What else could you do?

So console yourself with this false comfort dear, if it'll help you rest.

Today isn't the last and it's far from the best.


	4. Turn Forever

_I guess it's fair enough to say that... when we left, we were human. And when we came back, we were human. But somewhere along the way, we... forgot._

The day announced itself with a chirp, a rattle, and pain.

The battered, sleeping girl was drug from the recesses of sleep by the chirp of a nearby bird... but in her groggy state, she hadn't realised exactly how close. Not that she could have done much, given how much room she'd intentionally left herself. So, when she heard the curious clatter of stone on stone, she had about two seconds to wonder exactly what it was — before the shower of small stones and shale knocked loose by the pigeon overlooking her hiding spot rained down on a head too sore to take it.

The day had started out less than stellar.

Doing what she could to scare the annoying bird off, she spent the next couple of minutes dislodging herself from her hiding spot, which might have been easier - except that it was the day after the crash, and all the injuries were tightening up. It felt like an effort just to move her arm a few inches, and everything was swollen. She swore her shoulder was probably the size of her head now... and her head.

Gritting her teeth, she forced herself to push past that pain. If she let sore muscles and stiff joints keep her from moving forward, she deserved to die here, given what she'd already lived through.

Nonetheless, when she finally freed herself, she felt she deserved a few minutes' rest to catch her breath and maybe stretch a bit.

So it was that, about fifteen minutes after she woke up, ignoring pain and thirst and all the other things that came with having just been blown out of the sky because there'd be time enough to deal with it all later when it was important, that Noodle set off.

The canyon was about as receptive to her efforts as it had been before, with one significant difference - the sun was actually shining, a fortunate rarity in the greater part of England. So, rather than the chill she'd been feeling before, she got to enjoy a warmth only accented by the barren earth around her.

However, even that wasn't enough to keep her spirits up after a few hours of searching. She had no idea where she was - the only landmark she knew of was the wreck, and she hadn't seen it again at all, and an internal compass didn't help much in a maze of unright angles. So, the more she looked, the less certain she was that she was seeing anything new, the less inspired she felt to search. The more uncertainty crept into her head, the more frustration built up. Eventually, she wasn't gritting her teeth against the pain, but rather out of a mix of undirected anger and the subtlest amount of worry she'd deny ever feeling.

She punched a rock.

Her right arm flew into reprimanding spasms and she was left curled up against the same stone she'd tried to break for a few minutes, drawing in short breaths. But if there was one thing the pain offered, it was clarity. She wasn't supposed to be the one to panic in a situation like this, or the one to get angry like that. That was... _their_ job. Images of blue hair and a fragmented nose, painkillers and gin...

That's right. There was that, that was definitely true. Getting stuck and dying in a canyon would be a ridiculous way to go after coming this far.

Actually smiling a bit, for once, she pushed herself off the rock and continued on her way, and lo and behold, optimism seemingly prepared for her a path. Within the hour, she'd found wending path up the steep canyon wall. It wasn't the most appetizing exit ever, given how thin it got in sections, but it was an exit and it'd be a foolish thing to pass it up. She still had her balance, at least.

So up she went, step after step, thigh joints screaming bloody murder, knees threatening to sign in their resignation. Bruised muscles limited breathing - breaks were frequently taken. But, minute by minute, with only thoughts of freedom from that wretched blemish on the face of the planet, she climbed. The pain was just what you had to go through to earn what you wanted. It was a rite of passage. One foot in front of the other. Come on, little soldier. One, two, one, two, one tw—

She spilled over the edge with all the force of a gently overfilling glass of water, slumped face-down in green grass, damp and smelling so sweet. She was exhausted. Everything hurt, because everything _was_ hurt. And yet... There was just an elation at even having accomplished this.

How curious, that, given what else she'd accomplished in her very short life.

A small part of her kept an eye out for that monstrous mosquito sound, half expecting to hear it again as the vultures circled to pick off the dead. But there was nothing, no whirr of helicopter blades. Nothing. Just the sound of the breeze through the grass, and the clamour of urban life...

She blinked, flipping over as fast as she could and looking behind her. Of course, what was waiting for her there was something she could never, in any number of years, have expected.

A lean-to shanty town, assembled out of old rotting wood and cardboard boxes and the detritus of a people dragging the city with them to... what? Her eyes rose to meet the skyline, as the complexity of this cross-section of the lowest section of humanity increased - walkways stretching over semi-functional homes, signs made of aluminum plates announcing things she couldn't read from where she stood.

Rising from the middle of that broken cardboard horizon was an impossibly large, and oh so familiar tower, made of steel.

Even from the ground, so far from the top of that tower, she could read the words scrawled in a mockery of her own concept, so close and yet so strange. "Feel Good, Inc."

As it had been conceived in the video, here it stood, utterly lifelike. Dull, thrown together steel somehow creating the facade of unity, rising like a spear above the terra firma until, like a bloated blood vein to some corrupt segment of heaven, it widened. That would be where the actual people were, that structurally unsound swelling in this modern-day Longinus.

To say it was surreal, to happen upon an idea of yours that someone had turned into reality, would be a vast understatement. Conflicting emotions boiled up - disgust for what the tower had represented, even then, flattery that someone would go so far as to make something like this (such a weak little feeling, but it was some sort of beetle, and no matter how much she tried to quash it, it remained), resignation. Yes, resignation, among all the others, was the most poignant at the moment.

Because she didn't know if there was any other sign of civilization for miles around, and she couldn't just walk and hope to find it. Because, even if she never set foot near that tower, she'd need to lose herself in this strange city that had sprung up under its shadow, and even that would lead to her finding out, eventually, what had come to pass here.

Still, her shoulder was stiff and sore, and she'd stood here agape for long enough. She was getting odd looks from the slumdwellers squatting in their makeshift dwellings. She pushed herself to her feet, brushing the dust off her old clothes as best she could, and with one final intake of breath, she descended into the belly of this beast.

It was... eye-opening, at least. Noodle had, for all her other experiences (which she could easily claim trumped most other humans alive, even those several decades her senior) never seen a shanty-town before. She made out firepits with bits of... almost anything that could burn, that hadn't burned last time they'd needed the heat. Bits of magazine, cloth, torn pieces of cardboard from the occupant's houses themselves. People sat around and talked in hushed tones, or swaggered slowly towards the "city" centre. The air stunk of filth, and above even that, a stronger smell... it rankled her nose. It was alcoholic, and yet, there was more... the flash of a needle in the corner of her eye gave a handy supposition there. The air was tainted with addict culture.

Just as the eye at a distance had perceived, the body whole found to be true. The city became more like a city the further she went - and the filth in the corners and pushed up against buildings and tracked underfoot multiplied. Old chip bags and broken glass, bottles mixed with diapers, old food... here and there a flash of some sort of packaging. There was something... off, about this homeless aesthetic when you saw all these elements side-by-side. They didn't add up. It was 2 and 2 making 3. A man in a raggedy suit cupped a woman's breast on the side of the road. She passed them by. A kid playing in the muck with... a brand new toy bulldozer, not yet run down. Cigars. Blunts. Needles and bongs, and so much alcohol.

The further she went, the more this place shed its pitiable image for a glance at the underneath. This was a place of indulgence. It struck her, actually, in the middle of the street, and the thought made her almost double over, laughing.

Murdoc made most people look normal, and yet in the face of this... whatever this was, he'd look well adjusted. The whole place might weird even him out.

For all her laughing, no one paid her any mind. They just shuffled by her, dull and lifeless, on their way to whatever fix they needed next. And the sense of... wrongness about this place just came back. It was like shooting the video all over again, just on the ground this time.

She reached the point where the walkways started, and actually had to pause for a moment in amazement. For all the filth and depravity of the shadow of the Inc., the ingenuity was astonishing. They'd built a multi-tiered downtown to go with all the rest of what they'd set up. The walkways split, offering access to the different levels, made out of pieces together bits of metal and wood and whatever else was stable enough that these amateur architects managed to find. And there were actual signs, for actual shops. Whatever this was, it was aping an actual city with astonishing proficiency.

It was here, on these shadowed streets, that her thirst overtook her. She hadn't had anything to drink for probably a day going now. Her throat was sore, and the inside of her mouth felt like damp sawdust. She dipped into the nearest building that looked like it might have something to drink, out of desperation.

It was a dinghy place, lit with wall sconces burning actual flames (because the odds of there being actual electricity out here were about nil, unless they managed to obtain a freight ship's worth of personal generators). Behind the ramshackle counter, a woman who looked like she was in her mid thirties, but had decided to skip to sixty out of apathy scrubbed futily against some stain or other on a surface worth less than the rag she was using. She tore a hole in it as the little Asian girl stepped inside, and barely spared a look up. Her eyes were ringed, sunken, black and oh so weary, and yet she had some sort of... dopey smile on her face. She was as dead as anyone else in this hell.

"Never seen ya 'round 'ere, girlie. Maybe ya new? Either way, take whatcha need. No bills runnin' this joint." She shrugged, sending masses of gaudy fabric cascading in imitation all down her arms. "An' if ya lookin' for help, lemme tell ya 'right now that ya're better off just gettin' used t' bein' a cripple. Nothin' 'round here but booze, drugs and zombies."

There was a water cooler in the corner, looking about as grimy as the rest of the place, but there was water still in it. She grabbed an offered glass and filled it up as full as she could. The water was tepid, and probably unhygienic, but at the moment just getting something to drink mattered more than anything else.

So, she drank until she couldn't drink much more. Then, despite feeling almost unwell with how much she'd drank, she was reminded that she hadn't eaten anything either. So, she bit into the first thing she saw that wasn't revolting - which actually happened to be a bag of chips. There seemed to be a lot of those around, but it was still sealed and the contents looked far better than the outside.

There was a moment of rest... of feeling fulfilled, and then she remembered where she was. And she remembered she didn't know why it existed.

So, sliding onto one of the mismatched chairs behind the "bar," she turned to the serving girl (who didn't seem that interested in helping the other two people who were here, not that they seemed interested in being helped) and tapped the bartop in front of her. It was plywood, she got a splinter for her trouble. "What... is this place?"

"Some rich guy's dream, hon, that's 'bout all it is. Built a tower based off some song or other for some reason, started taking people in. Some people left, said it was great, like getting a free pass at life. Anything you want. Sex, drugs, rock and roll. The whole deal."

"This?" She waved an arm at her glorious mess. "This's just a couple years' worth of nobodies coming to try and get their shot, and hoping the rich guy notices 'em and brings 'em on board. We got thousands, now, ya got no chance of getting in, but we stay. 'Cause hell, we don't have anywhere else to go, and we got our own version o' the rock and roll down here."

"Who's the guy who started all this?" Noodle bit at a chapped and split lip.

"No clue. Came here too late, just laid claim to my bit o' the crap. Wears a suit, has dark hair. 'Bout all I could tell ya." The bar lady shrugged. "What's your story? Ya look kinda young."

For some reason, the answer just came to her. "Had a bomb dropped on me, miss. Ended up wandering around for a while. Found this place by accident." And there was this sinking feeling that this was a persona she was going to be stuck with for a while.

The old lady laughed, revealing tobacco-yellowed teeth. "Ha! Ha... yeah, sounds about right. You'll fit in, hon."

She went back to scrubbing the countertop, when some last note occurred to her, and it made her laugh again. Her laugh was jagged, like glass. "Probably wish ya didn't, though."

[[Author's notes will be submitted as a review from now on, if you don't normally bother to read reviews and missed said announcement in the reviews last chapter. So... if you actually care about my commentary, feel free to check 'em out. Peace.]]


End file.
